The Nazi Doctor Mengele and Brazil's Crazy Mysterious Land of Twins

Updated on July 2, 2012

The Anomoly: 38 pairs of Twins Among 80 Families

After World War Two, the notorious Nazi doctor, "The Angel of Death", Josef Megele, fled to Brazil, South America, where there is a large German immigrate population. Using disguises and different names, he survived the worldwide hunt for him and to bring his atrocities against the Jews to trial.

During WW2, one of his main focus points were experiments on twins in order to create the Aryan (blond hair, blue eye) superior race. He was dead serious about this. In 1943, Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs of Roma twins during the night. Mengele placed them on his polished marble dissection table and put them to sleep. He then injected chloroform into their hearts, killing them instantly. Mengele then began dissecting and meticulously noting each and every piece of the twins' bodies. Dr. Mengele continued trying to unlock genetic engineering secrets and devise methods for eradicating inferior gene strands from the human population. His most passionate interest soon became twins. Twins were the perfect specimens because one twin could act as the control while the other was endlessly experimented on. The building in which Mengele housed his specimens was Block 10 – the Zoo, as it came to be called. The twins became known as Mengele’s Children. They received certain privileges such as being allowed to keep their own clothes and their hair, the rest of the inmates were stripped and had their heads shaved. The twins were housed in their own compound with boys and girls lodged separately. There are eyewitness accounts of an entire laboratory wall that was covered with human eyes “pinned like butterflies” as he pursued the eye coloration experiments, something he was obsessed with.

In the town of Candido Godoi, Brazil, made up of mostly German immigrants, there are 38 pairs of twins among 80 families living within 1.5 square miles of one another! Dr. Megele in the 1960s lived in the area of Southern Brazil posing as a veterinarian. Records show this is around the same time when the town began to experience the "twins" mystery, which continues today. Megele died in 1979. Local rumor mills run crazy about how Mengele conducted experiments with women in the town which resulted in the high rate of twins, many with the Aryan look. Rumor has it Mengele used new types of drugs and artificial insemination. None has been substantiated, yet, the whole twin thing remains a true anomaly that geneticists cannot explain: why so many within 1.5 square miles of each other???

The town of 6700 people, mostly German descent, began arriving during WW1 (1914-1918) because of cheap land, great climate and incentives from Brazil.

A Twilight Zone Spin

Adding a "Twilight Zone" spin to this oddity is the the fact that the twins phenomenon is centered in the 300 person settlement of Sao Pedro, which is within the town of Candido Godoi! Weird, very weird.

The twins phenomenon was really not noticed until the 1990 or so. One family has five pairs of twins. One explanation is in-breeding, that is, a brother marries his third cousin or other close family members that keep the gene pool rather similar and Germanic. Others,like a local doctor, who investigated, found that many of his interviewees remained silent. The doctor came to the conclusion that many of the locals were sympathetic to the Nazis or Mengele. However, some odd facts recalled by the locals indicate that Josef Mengele knew of the twin phenomenon and before his death, was in the area under the name of Rudolf Weiss. Some recall that he attended women with varicose veins and performed dental work. Others recall that he drove from house to house in a mobile lab, collecting samples and ministering to women. Ministering what? There seems to no answer.

Still others point to drinking the spring water used by the area. It is felt that something in the water affects ovulation in women. Seems like a simple thing to test, yet, after all these years and suspicion, no one has conducted the water test. Weird. Very weird.

Meanwhile, world media brings the town money and visitors and wannabe book authors doing their own investigation and all this helps their local economy.

As Rod Serling, host of the 60s TV series, The Twilight Zone, would say, "Consider the case of Candido Godoi, a farming community in Brazil. Unwilling to reveal secrets, unable to explain the Twins phenomenon, all the while alluding to a dark Nazi secret in hope of the great achievement. Although genetic experimentation can be a tragedy, it may come as a blessed relief to those trapped in—The Twilight Zone."